A Revelation at Trader Joe's

It hit me this morning, as I was checking out at Trader Joe's. A big shopping cart full of good deals led to 15 minutes of the employee scanning everything. As she took her time and carefully packed up my bags (it is NYC after all; I had to carry all these groceries home somehow), I started sharing my life story. Telling her how my four year old is going to make Irish Soda Bread with that flour. How we're only in NY for a year. How it's our fourth move in as many years. How I stopped working a few months ago, how I love doing cooking projects with my daughter, how I love the much cheaper prices at Trader Joe's compared with the high priced city supermarkets.

She was so nice listening to all this, but she must have thought I was a little too open. Or a little needy, a little desperate. Or maybe that I just needed a friend to talk to.

I wouldn't trade my life for anything. Lilly is the best girl I could ever ask for. Jon is a great husband and partner. I have good friends in places we've left behind, and great family that is so good to me and my girl.

But I don't have a friend in the city. It's been 9 months since we moved here, and I don't have a single local friend to chat with. The couple girls nights I've had have included friends coming in the city to visit from other places. Jon has some friends, but no one with a nice counterpart who wants to meet a new friend.

It's difficult, this "moving somewhere for a year" thing. Without having local employment, without having a network of people, it gets a little lonely.

And so I share a little too much with the check out lady at Trader Joe's. I talk to other moms - at Lilly's dance class, and moms I pass by in our building - trying to find common ground, but realize while they're nice to chat with, their lives are much busier than mine and they're not really looking to meet new people, especially when I'm leaving as quick as I came. At Lilly's school, at her speech therapy, at the playground - there are tons of women but they're all nannies paid to raise these children - not really looking to meet friends either. And in Manhattan, many of the women my age that I pass on the streets are much busier trying to build a career and find a husband than find someone new to hang out with.

I'm not exactly lonely - this has been my best most fulfilling year with Lilly and Jon. But there is that absence of being able to call someone up to meet me for coffee or a walk through the sales racks at Ann Taylor Loft that makes me feel a little isolated, at least in the girlfriends department.

But it's fine. 3 more months to go, and we start over again. And I'm excited about what the future holds for us.